Thanks to my beloved @hellarcanine for this kiss prompt! You asked for #20 (on a scar) from this list – you got it, my babu. See below the cut for more, or read on AO3 if you prefer.

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Lips on the tender curve of her neck, then a gentle tracing of his tongue.

Aloy inhales slowly and tries to force her eyes open, but her eyelids are so heavy. “Nil,” she mumbles. “What time is it?” It’s dark still in their east-facing chamber, so it can’t possibly be close to daylight.

His hand slides enticingly over her breast, and he nips her neck with his teeth. “Don’t think about the time,” he purrs. “You’re the master of your own domain. There’s nothing to say you can’t master the fickle trails of time itself.”

Aloy scoffs softly. “That kind of logic lets you do exactly as you please. How convenient,” she teases, yet still she arches into his lips as he presses them to a spot just below her ribs.

He slips his tongue lightly across the small patch of skin, then graces it with a tiny bite. “Roll over,” he says.

“Why?” Aloy asks suspiciously, but follows his request all the same. Once she’s on her belly, Nil looms over her on his hands and knees and nuzzles a spot on her left shoulder blade, the same spot that he once bit in the throes of their passion.

“The constellation of your scars makes a fine map, Suntress,” he replies. “I feel compelled to follow the path they show.”

“Uh-huh. Says the man who never follows paths,” she murmurs. His teeth graze the scarred spot on her left shoulder blade, and the tactile reminder is bringing a slow, warm pulse to life between her legs.

He leans forward to entrap her between his forearms and presses his lips against her ear. “I follow your path, Suntress. And I’ll follow the path of these victory marks to their inexorable end.”

His looming posture screams with dominance, his limbs like a cage enclosing her in place, and Aloy gasps at the breathtaking surge of lust that his words and his body bring. He slides down the bed, his mouth marking the myriad small scars on her back, then suddenly he takes hold of her hips and rolls her onto her back again.

He shoves her legs apart, and Aloy releases an involuntary moan as he nuzzles her smooth inner thigh. “There are no scars there,” she manages to pant.

Nil lifts his face and smiles slowly at her. The pale grey of his eyes catches the faintest hints of starlight, giving his gaze a demonic glow. “Is that an invitation to give you a new one?” he purrs.

Aloy scoffs again. “No,” she ripostes, but her body betrays her: her hips rise entreatingly towards his face without her conscious permission.

Nil chuckles against her skin. “Your scent tells the truth, Suntress. I see what you need.” He licks the skin of her thigh right beside the heated pulse of her sex, then gently bites her thigh.

His teeth caress her skin with increasing pressure, and Aloy’s breath comes shorter and shorter as the pain becomes more sharply exquisite. Right when she’s about to tell him to stop, he releases her skin and smoothes his tongue over her wet heat with a long, hot stroke.

She cries out and arches into him, and her cry is like letting him off his leash: Nil lifts her knees over his shoulders and ravages her pussy with his mouth.

Aloy slams her head back into the pillow and sinks her fingers into his hair. His lower lip plays across her plump folds with a teasing gentleness, but his tongue is unerring and focused, sliding around her clit with exquisite pressure, and Aloy whimpers with frustration as her climax immediately begins to rise. It’s unfair, too soon, he only just got started-

Within a few marvelous but woefully short minutes, her rapture rolls over her, and Aloy screams her pleasure into the back of her hand. Nil continues to lap hungrily at the apex of her thighs until the trembling of her body stills, then he lifts his face and grins at her.

He slides his thumb gently over the tender site of his bite on her thigh, then sighs melodically. “No blood, Suntress. It won’t leave a scar,” he says with mock regret. “Should I try again?”

Aloy hesitates and bites her lip. She wants to say yes; her mind is clamouring for more, and the residual buzzing of her climax is begging for an encore. But in the faint grey light of night, she can see the scar on his left cheek, the bitemark she left on his shoulder so long ago, and she knows there are more marks sprinkled across his chest…

She sits up and pulls Nil toward her with one hand around the back of his neck, and he obligingly slides close. She kisses him hard and savours the scent of her own pleasure in his facial hair, then presses her lips against his ear. “Your turn,” she whispers. “And I know for a fact that you have more scars than me.”

Nil chuckles as she shoves him down on the bed. Aloy leans in to kiss the scar on his cheekbone, but before her lips can meet his skin, he slides his hand into her hair and grips it firmly to look her in the eye.

“I’ll take a real scar, Suntress,” he whispers. “Let the world see the mark you’ve left on me.”

His voice is a feral growl, but his glowing eyes are tender. Aloy’s lust mellows with affection as he smiles at her, and she leans in to kiss him gently on the lips.

She’ll give Nil another scar if that’s what he wants. But Aloy needs no visible reminders of the oceanic impact her Carja killer has had on her heart.